Tag Archives: Pogo Stick

These days playing board games seems to be about as antiquated as trying to solve the mystery of the Rubik’s Cube or awkwardly hopping around on a pogo stick watching your life flash before your eyes. But they’re so fun, so why doesn’t anyone really play them anymore?

The board games that we once played as children just don’t quite make the cut anymore when searching for ideas of what to do on a Friday night. For me, however, they do tend to bring back memories of laughter and fun with my family where no computer or iPhone was repeatedly being checked being sure not miss someone’s latest selfie or the all too familiar picture of just toes sticking up in front of a line of sand and just beyond that the blue ocean emulating how pleased the owner of the toes is that their feet are on vacation.

So, with that in mind, I decided to go retro the other night and offer out the idea of family game night with the clever little game we inherited from a friend; Clue.

Even though past memories of trying new games flashed into my brain (complete warning signals) of me reading the rules to my family first happily, sometimes pausing to make sure they understood, then moving on to a more than eager pace desperately trying to avoid eye contact with my less than enthused audience so they wouldn’t stop me with the eventual proclamation of, “Let’s just play!” or, “We got it!”

Well, why not give it a whirl?

Clue is a game I have heard of since forever but have never actually played. So, here I am faced with the inevitable reading of the rules to the family situation once again because none of them know how to play it either.

Great.

This is not a step to be skipped (even though my family believes otherwise.) The directions must be read because they are are there for a reason. How else are we supposed to know what to do with the colored pieces, the cards (which look bizarrely elementary for such a complicated game,) and the miniature replicas of common killing devices?

We will read–then we will have fun.

This time, though, I wisely decided I would figure everything out beforehand. That would make the explaining part quick and simple.

Ha!

Once I found the rules (wondering if finding them was actually part of the game since I could’ve used a clue as to where to actually find them,) I laid them out on the floor, bent over them and started reading, and reading, and reading.

Total snorefest.

By the time I arrived at what to do with the cards, I had already forgotten how to start the game (which I really didn’t understand to begin with) and then got so confused about the doors and how to get in the rooms and how many people can be in the rooms at one time that I began to feel mentally deficient and that I may have chosen the wrong career path. Children play this game. Children I’ve taught play this game. How hard can it be?

So, after I neatly returned the pieces that did make it in the box from the previous owner (looks like we’ll be fashioning our own lead pipe and looking for a replacement for the purple token if we ever do play this game,) I declared, “We aren’t playing Clue EVER people!”

I’ll admit, guilty feelings did enter my mind as I packed it all away thinking about the ghosts of former students and those whiny voices saying this is soooooo haaaaarrd and I don’t get iiiiiiiiit.

Am I one of those now? A giver upper?

Well, after a glass of wine and the hopes that I wouldn’t give a crap how hard the directions were once it had taken effect in my system, I realized I had let a game get the best of me, and I would go back and read them again.

Then…that thought was quickly replaced with an even better one.

I had actually solved the big mystery of why people don’t play board games anymore and, therefore, was free of my guilt for being a quitter.

We are too advanced for the reading of long, boring directions these days. We’re movers and shakers now. This is the 21st Century afterall!